Superior Court ruling comes amid ongoing lawsuits over 2016 murder-suicide
A state appellate court rejected a bid by a father of a woman who was murdered by her estranged husband two years ago to have himself appointed executor of his daughter’s estate.
The seven-page ruling that the Superior Court issued on Monday held that Richard Kopko lacked standing to remove his granddaughter, Morgan Miller, from her role as executrix of the estate of her mother, Tierne Ewing.
Kevin Ewing severed a court-ordered GPS monitoring device from his ankle and abducted his wife from a West Finley Township home early on Aug. 30, 2016, sparking a daylong manhunt. That night, he murdered her and then shot himself in a barn several miles away, later dying of his self-inflicted injury.
At the time of those events, Ewing was already the subject of pending criminal charges and a restraining order on behalf of his wife, who told police that two months earlier her husband had kidnapped, beaten and tortured her for more than a week.
Attorney Richard Thiele – who represents Kopko and Annelle Kopko, Tierne Ewing’s mother – initially asked to be named executor in Washington County Orphans’ Court early last year amid a parallel lawsuit against Rosalee Riggle, Kevin Ewing’s mother, in Washington County Court of Common Pleas.
As part of a response to the case, Riggle’s attorney, James Harvey, had argued that the Kopkos lacked the ability to pursue two of the claims in their lawsuit – wrongful death and survival action – because they lacked an interest in their daughter’s estate.
As Richard Kopko’s attempt to have himself named executor moved through orphans’ court and then appeal, Thiele amended the Kopkos’ lawsuit to remove those counts. The latest version of their complaint still includes counts of negligence, among others, against Riggle. Riggle’s attorney has argued both lawsuits against her should be dismissed for legal insufficiency.
Meanwhile, Miller brought a similar case in August 2018 against Riggle, Washington County and several companies – including Alcohol Monitoring Systems Inc. and Vigilnet America LLC – that were associated with the monitoring device Kevin Ewing was required to wear.
In June, Common Pleas Judge Michael J. Lucas agreed to consolidate the Kopkos’ and Miller’s lawsuits into one case.